Book Review: König Karl XII von Schweden by Otto Haintz

bring out the personalities of the different papers, in spite of all his
painstaking and instructive workmanship.
The book is furnished with useful biographical notes, in addition to
conventional footnotes, while Mr. Capps has provided a table of news­papers,
giving their editors and selected circulation figures. These
figures are for various years, but the author seems to have aimed at
giving those for 1915, 1925, 1935, and 1945, where possible. They sug­gest
strongly that much of the Swedish-American press held its own
during the 'twenties, the catastrophic decline coming in the next
decade. The 1930 figures might have thrown more light on this, but
no doubt they were not available, and in any case this is a side issue,
although not unrelated to Mr. Capps' point about financial decline.
The index lists topics only, but the views of individual papers can
easily be followed through the footnotes, which are in their proper
place. The book is pleasantly printed and bound, and there is a very
pleasing lack of typographical errors, something on which one cannot
always count in scholarly publishing today.
MICHAEL BROOK
M i n n e s o t a H i s t o r i c a l S o c i e ty
KÖNIG KARL XII. von Schweden, By Otto Haintz. Berlin: Walter
de Gruyter & Co., 1958. Three Vols. Pp. xv + 993. D M 75.00.
Charles XII of Sweden is very probably not the first person that
would c&me to the mind of a non-Scandinavian—perhaps even of a
Scandinavian—if he would have to name great figures i n the history
of Sweden. This may largely be due to a widely held notion that
Charles XII was an irresponsible and foolhardy strategist who
through a succession of adventurous wars reduced Sweden from a
world power to a politically unimportant buffer state. Undergraduate
students of Russian history who have studied only G. Vernadsky and
O. Halecki—and here the reviewer writes autobiographically—seem
to be inclined sometimes to write off Sweden as a world power since
the ill-fated battle before the Ukrainian city of Poltava in the year
1709, because it is precisely here that czar Peter the Great emerges
as the political genius and power figure in Europe during the first
quarter of the eighteenth century.
Be that as it may in all its simplification, the interested person
willing to read through almost a thousand pages of richly docu­mented
but readable and brisk German text will find many an over­simplified
myth dispelled and delight in brilliant historical research.
Haintz traces with scrupulous scholarly exactitude Charles' inroads
on Denmark, Poland, Saxony, Russia, and Norway and shows how
108
almost every move of his had an effect on the European power bal­ance
or power struggle, as the case may have been. The author d i ­vides
the heroic path of Charles X I I into three stages.
The first stage deals with a number of successful military opera­tions
i n Northern and Eastern Europe which were meant to forestall
the surge of Russian power and the concomitant danger for Sweden
as well as Europe. Haintz states repeatedly that Charles has been the
first European monarch to foresee that Russia would always endanger
any peace in Europe in the future. History has proved his prognosti­cation
to be true. Charles' heroic battle before Poltava against a
superior number of Russian troops must therefore be considered an
event of great historical importance and the hour of Charles' defeat a
S t e r n s t u n d e d e r M e n s c h h e i t , to use Stefan Zweig's book title of his­torical
miniatures i n the singular.
The second stage in Charles' life deals with his sojourn in Turkey
and with his failure to draw her into a war with Russia. It ends
with Charles' last battle on German soil and his return to Sweden
after an absence of more than fifteen years.
The last stage deals with the morally decayed state of Swedish
absolutism, largely due to the rivalry between the House Hesse and
the House Holstein-Gottorp in an effort to settle succession. As the
king was known not to spare his own life in battle, there were a
goodly number of predictions as to his early death. And, as pre­dicted,
death came i n the year 1718 in front of the Norwegian fortress
Fredrikshald. Although it is very probable that Charles was killed
by an enemy bullet through the temple, there are some speculations
that he fell victim to a foul assassin. Posterity has opened his sar­cophagus
in the Riddarholm Church i n Stockholm four times to ob­tain
more clues as to the nature of his death.
Charles X I I of Sweden emerges out of this work as a self-willed,
energetic and heroic genius of war with battle scars. His political
ideas were audacious and clearly perceived. He lacked, however, dip­lomatic
flexibility and political intuition. This led to what most his­torians
nowadays consider ill-fated moves such as the occupation of
Saxony. The King always trusted his seemingly bellicose genius and
appeared to overcompensate with it diplomatic rigidity. Over and
over again his highly developed sense of fair-play and honor is men­tioned.
To the modern reader many of his strategic moves may per­haps
seem to be foolhardy, but in the light of 18th century abso­lutism
they can be considered as a matter of course.
Of the many fascinating people around Charles two shall only be
mentioned here: Field Marshall Rehnschiöld who fought the famous
battle of Fraustadt for Charles and who later was held prisoner of
war for over nine years by czar Peter the Great; the other is Baron
100
von Görtz, a Holsteiner, favorite adviser of the King, but who i n ­trigued
a good deal in his own interest and later fell victim to a
judicial murder in Sweden after an infamous scapegoat ritual.
The W a r s of C h a r l e s XII of S w e d e n might have been perhaps a
more appropriate title, for little do we hear about Charles in things
other than military. A compilation of the works mentioned in the
footnotes would have been helpful. The reviewer found only one
year in error (III, p. 170).
This book will undoubtedly be of interest to scholars, but also to
students in the Humanities. It is certainly worthy of a skilful trans­lation
into English.
HANS-JOACHIM MOLLENHAUER
N o r t h P a r k C o l l e ge
ÖN SOM SVERIGE SÅLDE (The Island that Sweden sold). By
Bengt Sjögren, Zindermans Förlag (Vallgatan 15 Göteborg c). 1966;
cloth, Ills.; Sw. K r . 27.50.
This is a story of St. Barthélemy, a little island in the West Indies
that was a Swedish colony from 1784 to 1878 when it was returned
to France, its original owner. In English it is called St. Bartholomew
and usually abbreviated to St. Barth.
Sjögren's book is an opportune work that should attract great i n ­terest
at a time when the old Swedish colony is once again awaken­ing
from its beauty sleep with tourism spreading over the wonderful
islands of the West Indies at an ever increasing pace, hardly leaving
any rock above the Caribbean water line untouched.
So little interest has St. Barth attracted in Sweden from the day it
was returned to France, that, apart from a number of occasional
magazines stories, only two serious, non-fictional works have been
published about it. Both were doctors' dissertations, the oldest one,
E. O. E. Högstrom's S. Barthélemy u n d e r s v e n s k t välde (St. Bar­thélemy
under Swedish rule) printed in 1888. The second one is D e n
s v e n s k a k o l o n i n S : t Barthélemy o c h Västindiska K o m p a n i e t f r a m t i ll
1796 (The Swedish colony St. Barthélemy and the West India Com­pany
until 1794), by Ingegerd Hildebrand printed in 1951.
Not even Sweden's most detailed encyclopedia, Nordisk Familjebok,
2nd edition, found it worthwhile to mention more than three of the
colony's eleven Swedish governors, and none of those mentioned
served during the colony's most dramatic, hectic and controversial
periods, 1790 to 1816 when C. F. Bagge, G. H . af Trolle, H . H . Ankar¬
heim and B. R. Stackelberg succeeded each other, and 1819-1825
when Johan Norderling held the office.
In his introduction, Sjögren writes that he had originally thought
110

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bring out the personalities of the different papers, in spite of all his
painstaking and instructive workmanship.
The book is furnished with useful biographical notes, in addition to
conventional footnotes, while Mr. Capps has provided a table of news­papers,
giving their editors and selected circulation figures. These
figures are for various years, but the author seems to have aimed at
giving those for 1915, 1925, 1935, and 1945, where possible. They sug­gest
strongly that much of the Swedish-American press held its own
during the 'twenties, the catastrophic decline coming in the next
decade. The 1930 figures might have thrown more light on this, but
no doubt they were not available, and in any case this is a side issue,
although not unrelated to Mr. Capps' point about financial decline.
The index lists topics only, but the views of individual papers can
easily be followed through the footnotes, which are in their proper
place. The book is pleasantly printed and bound, and there is a very
pleasing lack of typographical errors, something on which one cannot
always count in scholarly publishing today.
MICHAEL BROOK
M i n n e s o t a H i s t o r i c a l S o c i e ty
KÖNIG KARL XII. von Schweden, By Otto Haintz. Berlin: Walter
de Gruyter & Co., 1958. Three Vols. Pp. xv + 993. D M 75.00.
Charles XII of Sweden is very probably not the first person that
would c&me to the mind of a non-Scandinavian—perhaps even of a
Scandinavian—if he would have to name great figures i n the history
of Sweden. This may largely be due to a widely held notion that
Charles XII was an irresponsible and foolhardy strategist who
through a succession of adventurous wars reduced Sweden from a
world power to a politically unimportant buffer state. Undergraduate
students of Russian history who have studied only G. Vernadsky and
O. Halecki—and here the reviewer writes autobiographically—seem
to be inclined sometimes to write off Sweden as a world power since
the ill-fated battle before the Ukrainian city of Poltava in the year
1709, because it is precisely here that czar Peter the Great emerges
as the political genius and power figure in Europe during the first
quarter of the eighteenth century.
Be that as it may in all its simplification, the interested person
willing to read through almost a thousand pages of richly docu­mented
but readable and brisk German text will find many an over­simplified
myth dispelled and delight in brilliant historical research.
Haintz traces with scrupulous scholarly exactitude Charles' inroads
on Denmark, Poland, Saxony, Russia, and Norway and shows how
108
almost every move of his had an effect on the European power bal­ance
or power struggle, as the case may have been. The author d i ­vides
the heroic path of Charles X I I into three stages.
The first stage deals with a number of successful military opera­tions
i n Northern and Eastern Europe which were meant to forestall
the surge of Russian power and the concomitant danger for Sweden
as well as Europe. Haintz states repeatedly that Charles has been the
first European monarch to foresee that Russia would always endanger
any peace in Europe in the future. History has proved his prognosti­cation
to be true. Charles' heroic battle before Poltava against a
superior number of Russian troops must therefore be considered an
event of great historical importance and the hour of Charles' defeat a
S t e r n s t u n d e d e r M e n s c h h e i t , to use Stefan Zweig's book title of his­torical
miniatures i n the singular.
The second stage in Charles' life deals with his sojourn in Turkey
and with his failure to draw her into a war with Russia. It ends
with Charles' last battle on German soil and his return to Sweden
after an absence of more than fifteen years.
The last stage deals with the morally decayed state of Swedish
absolutism, largely due to the rivalry between the House Hesse and
the House Holstein-Gottorp in an effort to settle succession. As the
king was known not to spare his own life in battle, there were a
goodly number of predictions as to his early death. And, as pre­dicted,
death came i n the year 1718 in front of the Norwegian fortress
Fredrikshald. Although it is very probable that Charles was killed
by an enemy bullet through the temple, there are some speculations
that he fell victim to a foul assassin. Posterity has opened his sar­cophagus
in the Riddarholm Church i n Stockholm four times to ob­tain
more clues as to the nature of his death.
Charles X I I of Sweden emerges out of this work as a self-willed,
energetic and heroic genius of war with battle scars. His political
ideas were audacious and clearly perceived. He lacked, however, dip­lomatic
flexibility and political intuition. This led to what most his­torians
nowadays consider ill-fated moves such as the occupation of
Saxony. The King always trusted his seemingly bellicose genius and
appeared to overcompensate with it diplomatic rigidity. Over and
over again his highly developed sense of fair-play and honor is men­tioned.
To the modern reader many of his strategic moves may per­haps
seem to be foolhardy, but in the light of 18th century abso­lutism
they can be considered as a matter of course.
Of the many fascinating people around Charles two shall only be
mentioned here: Field Marshall Rehnschiöld who fought the famous
battle of Fraustadt for Charles and who later was held prisoner of
war for over nine years by czar Peter the Great; the other is Baron
100
von Görtz, a Holsteiner, favorite adviser of the King, but who i n ­trigued
a good deal in his own interest and later fell victim to a
judicial murder in Sweden after an infamous scapegoat ritual.
The W a r s of C h a r l e s XII of S w e d e n might have been perhaps a
more appropriate title, for little do we hear about Charles in things
other than military. A compilation of the works mentioned in the
footnotes would have been helpful. The reviewer found only one
year in error (III, p. 170).
This book will undoubtedly be of interest to scholars, but also to
students in the Humanities. It is certainly worthy of a skilful trans­lation
into English.
HANS-JOACHIM MOLLENHAUER
N o r t h P a r k C o l l e ge
ÖN SOM SVERIGE SÅLDE (The Island that Sweden sold). By
Bengt Sjögren, Zindermans Förlag (Vallgatan 15 Göteborg c). 1966;
cloth, Ills.; Sw. K r . 27.50.
This is a story of St. Barthélemy, a little island in the West Indies
that was a Swedish colony from 1784 to 1878 when it was returned
to France, its original owner. In English it is called St. Bartholomew
and usually abbreviated to St. Barth.
Sjögren's book is an opportune work that should attract great i n ­terest
at a time when the old Swedish colony is once again awaken­ing
from its beauty sleep with tourism spreading over the wonderful
islands of the West Indies at an ever increasing pace, hardly leaving
any rock above the Caribbean water line untouched.
So little interest has St. Barth attracted in Sweden from the day it
was returned to France, that, apart from a number of occasional
magazines stories, only two serious, non-fictional works have been
published about it. Both were doctors' dissertations, the oldest one,
E. O. E. Högstrom's S. Barthélemy u n d e r s v e n s k t välde (St. Bar­thélemy
under Swedish rule) printed in 1888. The second one is D e n
s v e n s k a k o l o n i n S : t Barthélemy o c h Västindiska K o m p a n i e t f r a m t i ll
1796 (The Swedish colony St. Barthélemy and the West India Com­pany
until 1794), by Ingegerd Hildebrand printed in 1951.
Not even Sweden's most detailed encyclopedia, Nordisk Familjebok,
2nd edition, found it worthwhile to mention more than three of the
colony's eleven Swedish governors, and none of those mentioned
served during the colony's most dramatic, hectic and controversial
periods, 1790 to 1816 when C. F. Bagge, G. H . af Trolle, H . H . Ankar¬
heim and B. R. Stackelberg succeeded each other, and 1819-1825
when Johan Norderling held the office.
In his introduction, Sjögren writes that he had originally thought
110